Do Manchester City regret letting go of Cole Palmer?

For Manchester City, Cole Palmer’s move to Chelsea last summer and subsequent spell has been a case of ‘this is it’.

It may be sad to see one of their own prosper elsewhere, but no regrets can come to him. Palmer wanted out, and City paid him a huge £42.5m (£52.8m at today’s rates).

Urban wanted Palmer to stay, that’s certainly true. After making pre-season trips to Japan and South Korea to help Riyad Mahrez complete his move to Saudi Arabia’s Al Ahly, Palmer was on holiday after helping England narrowly win the European Under-21 Championship. Weeks ago, to request an eastward flight back to Manchester in time.

He was linked with a loan move to promotion-winning Burnley in the Premier League, but City have finally assured Palmer that he will get more minutes after a limited playing time in 2022-23. Palmer has already decided he wants to move on, though.

So could the city have done anything different since it didn’t want to leave? Maybe give him more games?

The simple fact is that Palmer Mahrez and Bernardo Silva were ahead of him in the pecking order at right wing last season. That should speak for itself.

A large part of the reason Mahrez left was the competition for places in that side; He played in key league and cup matches but was disappointed to miss out on the biggest games of City’s season, including the Champions League play-offs and the FA Cup final. Bernardo was the go-to man for those.

Those selection decisions made Pep Guardiola very unhappy.

“If he doesn’t play all the time, it makes me angry with him, it makes me realize how angry he is,” Mahrez said after scoring a hat-trick in the FA Cup semi-final against Sheffield United. Days after being an unused substitute in the Champions League quarter-final second leg away to Bayern Munich. Guardiola also said that he “won the fight to understand how important it is to the team”.

Mahrez is a key player for City who can’t be forgotten, and he can generally be relied upon to drop straight into the side to score or assist.

Palmer is doing just that now, as the 21-year-old joins Erling Haaland in the Premier League’s top goalscoring table with four goals against Everton on Monday night. Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final against City at Wembley is one of the big stories.

It’s easy to look at him now and see him as the perfect replacement for Mahrez, which is why people see City’s departure as a “mistake”.

Palmer has been so good that he is in the discussion for PFA Player of the Year. The favorite for that award is Phil Foden, who has scored hat-tricks against Brentford and Aston Villa at City in the last two months, scored two crucial goals against Manchester United and one against Real Madrid and Bournemouth.

Foden has been impressive in the middle of the pitch this season, despite Jude Bellingham being recognized by Real Madrid, but Gareth Southgate’s England squad are calling for him to be the final target for Gareth Southgate’s England squad this summer. , and Palmer at Chelsea.

And yet… Foden was in a similar situation to Mahrez last season: he was a regular starter but not in the strong XI that Guardiola fielded, like in the two Champions League semi-finals against Madrid. The final of that competition against Inter Milan (he replaced the injured Kevin De Bruyne in the first half) or the FA Cup final derby against United.

Foden had some fitness problems in the second half of the season but others were simply playing better than him so Guardiola’s choices were for those tough games.

A year ago, Foden was not seen as an option in the middle, leaving him to compete with Mahrez and Bernardo on the right, or Jack Grealish – a key cog in the team, especially in big games – on the left. At the center was De Bruyne, a self-proclaimed ‘competitor’ of quality. Ilkay Gundogan’s place has been secured thanks to his defensive prowess and helping to control City’s matches, Foden is now flourishing.

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The bar is incredibly high at City and even Foden and Mahrez are missing the chances they deserve. So, what chance did Palmer have?

City, of course, completed the treble last season, winning 18 of the 20 games played between late February and May and drawing the other two. They then again picked up the winning streak for the two finals.

This was a rare feat by the team’s management, though it came at the cost of Palmer’s unhappiness.

Then there’s the issue of Palmer’s own interests.

This is not a case of sour grapes from an urban perspective, as it was published by The athletics Last February: Palmer was given some chances at the start of that season, but was downgraded in January 2022 due to an unfortunate injury.

Palmer made a handful of appearances during the first half of that 2021-22 season. Given the opportunity to play in the FA Cup third round against Swindon Town, he decided to ignore injury. But this forced him to miss the rest of the campaign as he began to look impressive.

After a year – midway through last season – it felt like his confidence had dropped, and his body language reflected that.

As has become clear in recent months, body language is a big thing for Guardiola, and months before Palmer was sold to Chelsea, it was already being speculated that he could go out on loan to help reignite the spark. Guardiola’s assistant Juanma Lillo has been tipped to leave in 2022. Lilo returned to town last summer but at that point the die was cast.

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Palmer played just 850 minutes for City last season, with all seven of his starts coming in cup games or dead ends. That seems a mistake in hindsight and he would have been disappointed to see others like Sergio Gomez and Calvin Phillips come in as replacements for him – but so would Foden, Mahrez and others if Palmer had arrived. on their behalf. It’s a delicate balance.

Last season, Palmer was not the same ideal as he is now. It could be argued that this could have been the case if they had given him more goalscoring opportunities, but breaking into the Premier League is not as easy as any other City team.

“After two or three seasons, he’s going to need more minutes than he did last season. I completely understand,” Guardiola said in February. “If Palmer had the minutes I gave Phil (Foden) from the start, he would be here – but I didn’t. This is my responsibility.

“Why? At Bernardo’s, Riyadh, Phil. I chose the others at that moment.”

With a triple in the bag and City struggling to track down a double this season, it’s hard to pick too many holes in those decisions.

It is easy to talk about ‘mistakes’ and ‘regrets’ and it is certainly not a good situation for the city, but there is a normal reality: the choices made were very difficult to understand, and you can be sure that all the participants did the right thing. The time.

(Top photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)